


stale frosting

by trash_rendar



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Humor, Minor Body Horror, strong language (but like if two-face showed up at your job to order donuts you'd be cussing too), supervillains doing normal human things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 15:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21448687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_rendar/pseuds/trash_rendar
Summary: Harvey goes on a donut run.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	stale frosting

Josh thought his luck was bad when his manager told his his had to cover the late shift Tuesday.

He doesn’t realize _how_ bad until 2:02 in the morning, when the bell over the door chimes and Harvey fucking Dent steps through.

Josh summons all his gangly, twenty-something, college dropout strength and sprang into action, bravely freezing like a deer in headlights before stammering through the corporate script that opened every sale.

“W-w-w-welcome to Dunko Donuts, aaah – uh, er, what can I get fffor you?”

Two-Face doesn’t seem to notice how bad his delivery was (_what the fuck what the fuck Two-Face is standing behind the counter what the fuck),_ and if he does, he doesn’t comment. His good eye, the one on the unblemished side of his face, squints thoughtfully as it scans the menu behind the counter. The other eye isn’t really looking at anything; it just sits in its socket, glassy and glowering, an iris of hateful black painted onto a cue ball-white sclera. But it passes over Josh anyway, and skewers him on its gaze.

“Medium black coffee,” Dent grunts. “And a dozen donuts.”

“R-right.” Josh fakes being perky as he turns to the coffee machines, perhaps a little too aggressively. Where the hell were the cops? Weren’t cops supposed to love donuts?

The coffee is old, and bubbles indignantly as he closes the plastic lid over the paper cup. The crime lord behind the counter pops the lid back open once it’s in his hands. “Got any half-and-half?”

“S-sure.” Josh finds a handful of the little creamer cups and all but tosses them onto the countertop.

“Thanks, kid.”

Milk and cream splashes into the pooling dark, lingering on the surface. Dent almost-blends them together with a stirring stick before taking a drink. Josh watches in horrified awe as coffee leaks through cracks in the viscera of his scarred side, spilling down his ravaged throat and staining the collar of his shirt. The gangster hisses a curse, wiping off the excess with the same wrist that holds the cup.

The ‘evil eye’ is still unfocused, yet somehow Josh can still feel it boring deep into his soul. It stares into him, and he into it, until he blinks and realizes he’s the only one staring.

“Hey. Don’t forget about my donuts.”

Josh whirls around so fast he almost loses his stupid paper hat, apologies tripping over his own tongue as he crams a box full of assorted pastries. The lid is tented funny when he hands it over the counter and he’s sure some of them are squished, but whatever – there’s at least a dozen donuts in the box and he just wants the actual supervillain in his store to leave him alone as soon as possible. It’s not like Two-Face is gonna peek inside the box before he leaves or anything, he thinks.

They make some small talk (“You having an, uh, office party?” “Something like that.”), the bill is paid (“Keep the change,” Dent says, proffering a crinkled twenty). And then, because tonight is that kind of night, that’s exactly what Two-Face does.

The question hisses out of the side of the mouth curled in a permanent scowl. “This some kind of joke?”

“…S-something the matter, sir?”

“I asked for a dozen.”

“That’s right, t-that’s what I got you—”

“An _even_ dozen,” Dent stresses. He turns the box around to reveal rings of glaze and icing arranged in four rows of four… and a thirteenth stowaway stacked on top, a sad little depression in the frosting face of a Batman Boston Creme where Josh had forced the lid closed.

“Uh,” Josh says. He’s been sweating nonstop for the past few minutes but now he suddenly feels cold. “…Uh. We, uh. ‘ve been doing a baker’s dozen special.”

“Didn’t _ask_ for a baker’s dozen.” The voice turns guttural, like the garbage disposal in Josh’s sink, and just as sharp.

“I-I know, it’s just- that one’s just for free – look, it’s a dumb special anyway, you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, I was just on autopilot and it’s been a long day and I know you have a thing for twos, it’s in all the papers, I just -- ”

“Tell you what,” Harvey interjects, before Josh can grovel any further. “I’ll flip you for it.”

Oh, fuck, Josh thinks. Dear god, please, no. But the fallen DA is already digging around in the pocket of his suit jacket. When he finally fishes out his hand, there’s silver gleaming in his palm. It’s on the ridge of his finger for only a second before the edge of his thumb sends it flying with a _ting_!

“Call it in the air,” he says.

The coin tumbles end over end as it rises, faster than the eye can track but agonizingly slowly for the man on the other end of the counter. The Adam’s apple in Josh’s throat bobs as he watches the coin tumble, clean side and scarred side flashing interposed over one another – and somewhere in the space between them both, the evil eye, all black like a stalking shark’s, boring into him with the intensity of a sun. Waiting for its moment to strike.

He makes a strangled gurgle in his throat that sounds like ‘heads’.

The coin drops into the gangster’s hand. He claps it onto the opposite wrist before either of them can look at it. When Harvey finally lifts the veil, Josh is about to faint.

Lady Justice’s unscarred face beams up at both of them.

Two-Face quirks an eyebrow in surprise. Then he takes a napkin, plucks the offending pastry out of the box, and deposits it on the countertop before gathering the rest of his purchase without further fanfare.

A relieved sigh explodes out of Josh as he stares at Batman’s squished, sugary face. He takes a ravenous bite and finds himself almost crying from its sweetness.

Dent watches impassively from the doorway, standing in profile (the glass of the door captures his other side in its reflection). “Been a long night, huh?”

Josh nods. “Yeah,” he says, sniffling.

Two-Face chuckles knowingly over the chime of the bell. “Not as long as the other guy’s.”

**Author's Note:**

> Something silly spawned from wondering what the Gotham Rogues' lives look like between doing crimes and doing time. Harvey just getting donuts and terrifying the staff in the process was an image that really stuck with me.
> 
> Comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
